Poking the Bear

I've never been at the center of such a drama bomb as what got set off on twitter this morning. It was almost surreal the way the whole thing unfolded. As a result, Rixx Javix appears to have some hurt feelings, and is no longer my space bro. (He sent me a nasty gram on Twitter DMs shortly after to let me know he's unfollowing me and taking me off his blog roll)

I'm gonna have to back up a little bit here, and give some background. This story actually begins quite some time ago, long before the CSM election, though Rixx seems to think this has something to do with me getting on the CSM. Without taking the time to sift through thousands of tweets, I'll try to pull this from memory, and quotes may not be actual 100% quoted quotes.

To give the short version of it, a few months back Rixx was extolling some virtue of Stay Frosty on twitter. I pointed out some stat where our newbie corp in the Monkeys with Guns. alliance was superior, and got some little bit of flak back from him about people toting their killboard stats being dick faces or something to that affect. I thought, "Ok, I guess Rixx doesn't like killboards. Fair play, maybe I shouldn't rub my ePeen in his face like that."

If you know me at all, I'm a bit of a troll. Naturally, as Rixx is a fellow lowseccer, and a space bro, I follow his tweets and read his blog (except maybe his Pilot profiles of random dudes in Stay Frosty, the rest is pretty good though). When I notice him talk about something killboard related, and how awesome Stay Frosty (or his alliance, A Band Apart) is, I like to remind him how he told me people who care about kill stats are dick faces. I realized very early on that suggesting Rixx might care about something he expressly has said he doesn't care about can ruffle his feathers a bit, and he gets VERY defensive about it.

Didn't make this, but damn funny.

Way up in Nennamaila, my alliance has a killboard as well. I'd be bald faced lying to you if I told you I don't care about our kill stats. We have a rather nice killboard, topped with a banner and logo that I've paid Rixx 1.25 billion ISK to make for us, because I genuinely like the guy and consider him a bro (if an overly sensitive one at times). We're extremely ISK efficient as a group, almost to a fault, and hold just about the highest ISK efficiency of any alliance in Factional Warfare, usually around 87% or higher. We fall behind in some other stats, but that one is a point of pride for us.

You'll never hear me talk about how much I don't care about our killboard, because it's a measure of our PVP performance as a group, just like Rixx's is to his group. Anyone in Eve who considers themselves a PVPer cares about their killboard to some degree or another. It's an excellent intel tool against people you might be fighting, and a measuring stick on where your group excels vs where they fall short. You can also ask any of the CEO's or directors in BNANA about how much of a KB nazi I am, most of which never see the light of day in public when I ream out one of our pilots for refusing a scout in his 2 billion ISK Machariel after he loses it on a 6 jump solo run to a POCO bash.

I'm gonna be honest here: While there is some tiny bit of seriousness when I chide Rixx for flaunting kill stats he professes not to care about, it's mostly about the fun of pressing the guy's buttons. Kind of like the Rogue class in the early days of WoW, it only takes about 2 buttons to completely set the guy off.

Don't let the crassness of my enjoyment of pressing Rixx's buttons fool you though, I've had the guy's back at times too. Take for example relatively recently when Rixx posted his 1v1 comic about a Thorax not being allowed through a jump gate because of recent aggression. Someone (pretty sure it was Poetic Stanziel) linked it up on the Girl Gamer reddit as a piece of flame bait, and I totally had Rixx's back on the right to crack a joke that some people might find offensive. I also supported him when CCP shut down his Eve store selling shirts with his own original designs on them.

Recommended equipment for sensitive people on Twitter.

If you think I'm all about hating on Rixx, you're wrong. He's stated that the tweeting today was a personal attack against him. I have attacked people before; I've let go on a couple with both barrels on this very blog, and made no apologies about it. What I'm doing here is fucking with Rixx, nothing more (and it makes me just a little sad that I have to keep saying that I'm just fucking with him to avoid hurt feelings). The guy is easy to spin up, and goes momma bear in about 3.5 seconds if you say 2 words against his corp or alliance, and that's not really a bad thing either. I'd tee off on someone who started ragging on my bros in BNANA, but I also try not to make them a target of people who take issue with what I say in public.

Way down in Rixx's blog, about a year ago, one only needs to read his postings while he was in the middle of his dramatic separation from Tuskers to see a man with so much to say about something he professed to care so little about. Rixx is a caring dude, and there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think it's good to care about stuff, and people. One should certainly care about how they come off at times. Here's a pro tip though: Most people generally don't spend much time talking about things and people they don't care about. For me, I just couldn't be arsed to take the time for it.

(Hint: Read 2nd word of each paragraph. For posterity, this was a troll.)